The Practice Blog

Welcome to The Practice Blog, where I get to rant and rave about customer service, a topic I am passionate about. You have no idea how difficult and frustrating it is to be a trainer that specialises in sales and service and to receive poor service.

These entries will mostly be about my customer service experiences as an Australian consumer but may cover other topics from time to time. I will not name the guilty when I have had a bad experience but I will take delight in shining the torch on those companies that provide “Raving Fan” type customer service. I hope that these documented experiences may be useful to your company and personal service aspirations.

29/11/10

One of my pet hates is when I encounter staff in a small retail operation that do not care about me as a customer. While having a breakfast meeting recently in Adelaide in quite a nice cafe I had such an experience. I had arrived first and approached the counter to let the young lady know that I would be waiting for my business associate to arrive and if I could have a seat. She gave me one of those blank stares like I should not have bothered to ask and that I should just take any seat to my liking. In that instant I knew this was not going to be a great service experience. My colleague arrived and we were eventually asked if we would like any tea or coffee while we still perused the menu. I ordered a tea and my colleague ordered a lattee. Not surprisingly we both received Lattees. I was prepared to have it instead of the tea but my colleague called over the young lady and had it changed. An excuse was given that almost inferred it was my fault. 

Then it came time to order and again the lady was not listening and took my order incorrectly. This was on top of a face that had "I really don't want be here" written all over it. Anyone can have a bad day but at 9am in the morning it is not only going to be bad but long as well. I would suggest that if that young lady owned that Cafe she would have hidden her true feelings and put on a service performance that would make you want to come back. Exceptional service takes a special attitude and a "care factor" mentality that makes the customer feel like they are special. If you are in service, it is not about "you", it is about the customer and making them feel as special and cared for as possible. In summary the food was great, the venue was great, the prices were reasonable (although I must confess I did not pay!) but the service was poor. As a result of this poor service I would simply not visit that Cafe again. Small businesses (any business) cannot afford this kind of service experience and are losing money by the day. Hiring staff with fantastic caring attitudes  and training them in sales and customer service (and then regularly evaluating their performance) is the only way around it.